Bye Bye, Birdie...

I house sit for a family on a fairly regular basis. All I really have to do is take care of their animals and then sit around at their house all day. In their front room, they have two large windows that stretch from the ceiling to the floor. The dogs were asleep on the ground, the bird they had was playing around in it's cage, and I was cuddle up with the cat on the couch while Jayson spent Saturday morning running finance checks and creating budgets and meal plans for the next couple of weeks. I remember being almost asleep when I hear this loud crash against the window....

This poor birdie flew right into the window and fell on the ground. The poor guy had some obvious neck and head damage... He was flapping only one of his wings while laying on his right side on the ground, his head was tilted all the way back so he was touching his back, and his left eye was closed. While flapping his wings, he was doing back flips. Poor guy! :(

Jayson picked him up and tried to straighten out his left wing and checked out his neck to see if it was broken. None of the damage seemed to be too extreme because the bird was really calm and let Jayson hold him and move his wing and neck around to a more comfortable position. The only 'main damage' he had was that his left eye never opened back up again and he was missing a few feathers on his head...

Jayson and I had no clue what to do with this bird, but I didn't want to just leave him in the yard because I didn't want their cat, Buzz, to come eat him. I suggested that we call Wild Animal Services, or the zoo at Moorpark College to see if they would take him in. Jayson grabbed a towel and I put the dogs, Kody and Jin, in the back yard so they wouldn't trample us when we walked into the house with a bird. I called my friend Heather, who is studying the EATM (Exotic Animal Training and Management) program up at Moorpark College to see if she knew anything we could do. She said that if we brought him to the zoo at school all they would do is probably kill him and feed him to the animals, or let one of the students kill them cause they have to learn how to 'prepare the food' that the other animals eat. Jayson's heart broke at the thought of that so that idea got thrown out of the window immediately. We tried calling animal control and other wild animal offices here in the county but no one would return our calls.

After several failed attempts to find any sort of animal hospital that would help us come up with a solution, I suggested to Jayson that we should probably just put him back outside and let him die naturally.. He was probably going to die even if we took him to a vet/hospital anyway. Jayson looked at me in utter disgust at the fact that I had suggested that to him. I didn't understand why he was so upset at my suggestion. I found it to be rather silly because all I could think about was how many diseases this bird may have and I was worried about our health. Jayson was almost in tears just thinking about the thought of this bird dying in his hands, which was very likely to happen. I asked him why he was so worked up about this bird and he looked at me and said, "This bird is one of God's creations...just like you. Why should he be treated any differently than if it were you who was injured and needed help."

I was shocked. Completely at a loss for words. He is right. And I felt so selfish at the fact that all I wanted to do with this thing was leave him in the streets (essentially) to die... but Jayson wanted to love him and nurture him, and treated him like the creation of God that he was.. It just brought me to such a realization that everything in this world was created by God and nothing was created any differently or with any less love than a human. Jayson probably didn't realize it at the time, but he taught me a lesson that I needed to learn with just that one sentence...... After about 9:00pm last night, we hadn't heard from any animal hospital. We said a prayer for this bird and felt like we should put him in a safe place outside for the night to see if being in his natural habitat would help him.

Before we got in the car to head out to church this morning, Jayson walked over to the bird to check on him. He was still alive and his wing was back into its normal position. He actually had been walking around in the dirt next to a few bushes. Jayson picked him up and gently pushed him off of his hand to see if he could fly and he sort of flew from his hand back into the bushes. He picked him up again and tried to get him to fly one last time. The bird flew out of Jayson's hand and flew into the middle of the street. Jayson turned to look at me and we both cheered and were so glad to see the bird fly. The moment that Jayson turned to look at me, a GIANT, and I mean GIANT hawk flew down, grabbed the bird by his feet, and took off into a tree. Jayson and I stood there in shock and almost started crying. It was the saddest thing that has ever happened!!!!

Poor birdie....